Finding Arizona

Sunday, April 29, 2018

It is that time of year when our magnificent saguaro cacti are blooming again. Here are just a few of our first 2018 pictures of Arizona's Sentinels of the Desert!

April 25, 2018 A

April 25, 2018 B

April 25, 2018 C

Here are a few of our favorite saguaro blooms from years past...

Notice the drop of saguaro nectar

Remember, we have placed all of our photos found on this blog into Public Domain so that teachers anywhere in the world can use them in their teaching. We only ask that you give us photo credit - Linda and Dr. Dick Buscher

Monday, January 22, 2018

We just published an article on Live Science dealing with Arizona Caves. If you love the idea of "going undeground" then our amazing Arizona could just be your special underground playground as it is truly a treasure of speleological wonders. Speleologists,
scientists who study caves, estimate that over 4,000 caves lie beneath
the ground of Arizona, with some 1,600 Arizona caves already having been
discovered, verified and documented.

1. Never go alone into a cave. Always stay with your group.2. Plan ahead for an emergency. Be sure to have multiple sources of light.3. Bring the right gear; wear the right clothing.4. Tell someone where your caving group have gone and when you plan to return home.5. Stick to the pre-established routes in the cave. Caves are slippery; wear good caving shoes.6. Wear protective head gear.7.
Leave the cave as you found it. Don’t litter, disturb the cave
formations or any wildlife. Don’t cause any damage to the cave.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

We just posted a new article about the Harvey Girls on the Live Science website - https://www.livescience.com/. These young ladies played such an important role in the settling of so many towns along the rail lines that ran from the Midwest to California. They became the wives and moms in many of Arizona's rough and tumble early railroad towns like Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams and Ashfork. An amazing and brave group of young ladies - hope you enjoy our article - https://www.livescience.com/61097-harvey-girls-photos.html

Friday, December 29, 2017

Welcome to 2018 - we hope the new year is fabulous for you all. We want to restate once again that we have chosen to place all of our Arizona blog pictures into the Public Domain so that teachers and/or anyone can use our Arizona Public Domain pictures in their classrooms, work and/or leisure. Arizona Public Domain Pictures are sometime hard to find so we hope that all our blog pictures make the task for those searching for Arizona Public Domain pictures much easier. We only ask that anyone using our Arizona Public Domain Pictures use the following acknowledgement - Credit: Linda and Dr. Dick Buscher

Here are our first two pictures for 2018 - a short look back at the Christmas day 2017 sunset over Lookout Mountain in north Phoenix. Arizona always has beautiful sunsets but our winter sunsets, because of the many particulates in the air, are often even more spectacular. Enjoy!

P.S. Please email us and let us know how you have used our pictures. We would love to hear from you!

Friday, November 24, 2017

It's the most wonderful time of the year, so we share with you of list of some of Arizona's most spectacular and fun holiday outings - Enjoy!Prescott - Arizona’s Official Christmas City - Saturday, December 2nd, 2017

Where: The Courthouse Square in downtown Prescott, AZ

Fees: FREE event for all

Stop at the Courthouse Square to see the start of the annual Holiday Light Parade on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, the beginning of some wonderful Christmas activities in Prescott, Arizona. The following Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017 you will find the Courthouse lighting a great holiday treat with Christmas carolers and holiday cheer. Details: Fabulous floats, pets and even people light up the street, and Santa is waving in this community celebration. The Light Parade moves through downtown Prescott on its way to the Courthouse.

After the parade, the beautiful Courthouse Lighting ceremony takes place on Gurley Street. There are carols and more fun during this festive time, with lights ablaze. Sharlot Hall Museum also has a Frontier Christmas Open House with cider and home made cookies by a roaring fire. Everyone gathers to decorate the town's Christmas tree.

For a truly old-fashioned and down-home Christmas, come to Prescott this year.

So get out and enjoy Finding Arizona this holiday season - we are so lucky to live in such a fabulous and diverse state - we wish you and your the happiest of holiday seasons and a happy and healthy 2018.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

No one knows for sure the exact date in the Fall of 1621 when the newly arrived colonists from England sat with and shared an autumn meal with the Wampanoag Indians in their settlement of Plymouth. That shared, community meal would become known as America's first Thanksgiving Day. Over the following years a few presidents would decree and a few states would hold a random Day of Thanksgiving but it would be 242 years after that first Plymouth gathering before the Thanksgiving Day we know and love today would become an annual, American celebration. It took the fortunes of a terrible civil war, a spunky lady editor who lobbied and pushed the idea of a national day of thanksgiving through the pages of the American Ladies’ Magazine and a beleaguered, war-wary president all coming together in the fall of 1863 to start this great American tradition. September 1863 began with the forces of the Union Army having completed a summer of great, battlefield victories. The most important of those victories occurred on July 1, 2 and 3 around the small farming community of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. After three days of fighting, best estimates showed that the Union Army and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Virginia suffered together between 45,000 – 51,000 casualties. Those casualty numbers included 3,155 Union soldiers and an estimated 4,708 Confederate soldiers killed in action. An estimated 1/3 of the Army of Virginia had been wounded, killed or were unaccounted for. Had Lee’s army prevailed at Gettysburg, they would have swept into Washington, DC and overrun the Union capitol. But with the victory at Gettysburg, the Union still stood and Gettysburg would prove to be the turning point of that terrible American war. September 1863 found President Abraham Lincoln preparing to speak at the soon to be dedicated National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Since the beginning of his presidency in 1860, Sarah Josepha Hale, an influential magazine editor and the author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” had been lobbying President Lincoln to declare an annual national day of thanksgiving. On September 28. 1863 Ms. Hale once again wrote the president urging him to declare that the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." This time, after the events of the summer of 1863 and the Union Army’s victory at Gettysburg, President Lincoln agreed with Sarah Hall. On October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, issued a Proclamation of Thanksgiving to his fellow citizens in every part of the United States “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Lincoln soon traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863 and delivered what could arguably be the greatest 263-word speech in the history of mankind – the Gettysburg Address. One week later, on November 26, 1863, on the fourth Thursday of November, President Lincoln, Sarah Hale and the American people across the Union celebrated Thanksgiving Day. Since November 1863 Americans have paused every year to celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday of November with the exception of 1939 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the celebration to the third Thursday of November to lengthen the depression era Christmas holiday shopping season. The American people did not like this change and by 1941 President Roosevelt reluctantly signed a congressional bill reestablishing forever more the celebration of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. So as you gather with those that you love this Thanksgiving Day to pause in thanks, remember all those who have come before us to make this day such a special American holiday. It was the colonists of Plymouth and Wampanoag Indians that first gathered, but it was the unrelenting efforts of Sarah Josepha Hale and the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln that engenders us each and ever fourth Thursday of November to celebrate America’s Thanksgiving Day.

Here are some links for more information about the establishment of Thanksgiving Day…

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

It is always a fun time when you go to Jerome, once known as the “Wickedest Town in the West”. But this Friday and Saturday, October 13 & 14, 2017, the Jerome Historical Society will be sponsoring the town’s 14th annual Ghost Walk from 6:30 - 9 pm. If you enjoy a yearly October scary adventure and love the history of the Wild West, this is a perfect event for you.